"A child's learning is the function more of the characteristics of his classmates than those of the teacher." James Coleman, 1972

Wednesday, February 13, 2019

Ken Derstine on Randi Weingarten, Part 2

Originally published in 2015 by Ken Derstine:

The
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI) is one
of the oldest and most influential of the pro-business right-wing think
tanks. It promotes the advancement of free enterprise capitalism, and
has been extremely successful in placing its people in influential
governmental positions, particularly in the Bush Administration. AEI has
been described as one of the country's main bastions of
neoconservatism.–Right Wing Watch / People for the American Way

Part 1 of this article noted that at a conference of theAmerican Enterprise Instituteheld on February 5th,
2015, Randi Weingarten was praised by researchers for corporate
education reformers for her collaboration in developing a teacher
evaluation system based on standardized tests as part ofthe Gates Foundation’s “teacher quality” agenda.
Part 1 concluded by pointing out that Randi Weingarten’s public labor
persona differs from what goes on behind the scenes in her collaboration
with corporate education reformers.

At this forum she spoke candidly to an AEI audience whose members want to abolish unions or turn them into company unionsthat are part of management. Weingarten’s sleight of hand method can be seen in her answer to a question by the AEI moderatorFrederick Hesswho asks Ms. Weingarten (42:07 minutes into the video):

"Early
last month the New York Post reported that your successor at the UFT,
Michael Mulgrew, had told a gathering of the UFT leadership, “We’re at
war with the reformers. Their ideas will absolutely destroy, forget
about public education, they will destroy education in our country.” He
said of slow walking efforts on evaluation, “It was a strategy to gum up
the works because we knew what their lawyers were trying to do.” So
curious, when these things get out, how does that speak to this the
issue of cooperation, or trust or finding common ground?”

Ms. Weingarten’s reply:

"So
I think, number one, let me just say that whatever Michael said was
said in the middle of a private union meeting. Now, I know the UFT, you
have 3000 people in the room, probably NSA is taping every other word,
nothing is private, right? But if you have what is set as a union
meeting, just like if you had a board meeting that is a confidential
board meeting, you would not expect that anybody would actually use
whatever was said in that meeting."

If
it is not to curry favor with her corporate audience, why would the
President of a national teachers union respond in such a way to an AEI
audience about a statement from a union official warning that public
education is under attack? And to top it off, she says no one would
expect that “anyone would actually use what was said in that meeting.”
In other words, what union leaders affiliated with Ms. Weingarten say at
a union meeting should not really be taken seriously - it
is just red meat to appease the huddled rank and file. This reveals her
sleight of hand method – disrespect for the interests of teachers and
public schools and respect for corporate education reform interests – or
is her sleight of hand to say what she thinks the AEI audience will
want to hear? It can’t be both!

In
an age of constant verbal spin and obfuscation, the only way we can get
at the truth of people's intentions is by observing and remembering
their actions. In the case of Weingarten, she describes to the AEI
audience the actions of the AFT leadership that show her allegiance lies
with corporate education reform.

Immediately
after the above exchange, Weingarten says the statements must be seen
in the context of “the war” that was going on in New York City with
relentless attacks on teachers by corporate education reformers. This is
immediately followed by praise for the recent UFT contract that
included agreeing to a career ladder program and state law waivers by
schools, along with other concessions.

The
first part of the AEI meeting shows Randi Weingarten speaking prepared
remarks explaining the AFT to this conservative audience. She informed
the audience of three programs that the AFT is involved with. (6:51) In
introducing each one, she had a hand vote from the audience to see who
knew about the program, and to scold the members of the audience who
were not aware of the program. If this was Ms. Weingarten’s method of
teachingduring her short time as a teacher,
this shaming the students is one of the worst methods of instruction.
In this case, she was not so much interested in the audience being
informed about the particular program as she was interested in
demonstrating how the AFT is collaborating with corporate education
reform.

In her conversation with the AEI’s Frederick Hess, he asked (47:14) about the proposal at that time by

The
Gates Foundation of a two-year moratorium on the consequences of Common
Core assessments. He noted this is what Weingarten had proposed in
2013. He also noted that Weingarten in June, 2010 said Common Core “is
essential building blocks for a better educational system”, but in 2012
she said the implementation was far worse than the way Obamacare was
implemented. He asked her position on the Common Core. After speaking of
what she learned in her six years of teaching Weingarten replied
(48:05):

"If
you think about all those statements, they’re pretty consistent. I’m a
big believer in it and I am for the following reasons. I was a lawyer
before I was a teacher so I had the opportunity to learn and practice
the Socratic method. I was also a litigator. That tool actually helped
me more than virtually any other tool that I had for teacher prep in
teaching my kids Civics and the Bill of Rights. When I look at the
original standards in the Common Core: the going for deeper knowledge
and for applying facts, and not just knowing things, but trying to come
up with problem solving and critical thinking, what it took me back to
was my teaching at Clara Barton High School …"

After
a long monologue about her teaching, Hess interrupted her and asked why
in 2013 was she upset by the implementation of Common Core. She then
went on for ten minutes explaining how the Common Core could be better
implemented.She concluded that (54:08): “In some ways
the Business Roundtable, The Gates Foundation, the Learning First
Alliance; have all said a year later, “Wait a second, if you really want
this to work, you got to do, not only the adjustments, but you have to
give people the time to actually learn what we’re saying is an important
new strategy for deeper learning for children.”

At
the beginning of her remarks (4:40), Randi Weingarten told the AEI
audience that she engages with AEI because she believes in vigorous
debate. As an example (6:20) she said, “We will have a real share of
vigorous debate at the our (AFT) Convention this summer. I have promised
that we are going to have an hour debate on the Common Core on the
floor of our Convention. In New York… we call debate conversation.” The
AFT Convention was held one month after Weingarten’s conversation with
AEI.George Schmidt of Chicago’s Substance Newsdocumented the “conversation” that happened at the AFT Convention over Common Core:

It
became apparent that it wasn’t going to be a debate about what’s best
for the students, but what UFT -- and more broadly the leadership, which
has always been centered in New York -- wanted. These “thugs” were not
teachers, delegates noted. As the days of struggle unfolded, more and
more delegates noted that they were bullies sent to block any attempt by
the CTU to have an honest open debate about issues including Common
Core, high stakes testing and special education in the context of
"education reform" in 2014. The Educational Issues committee managed to
shove through every resolution, including one supporting common core
state standards for early childhood -- which is Pre-K – 3rd. The only
resolution they did not push forward was anti-testing special education
which was sent back to the executive council after a maneuver. It
appeared to this reporter that the UFT was more interested in knocking
down CTU resolutions than listening to the arguments and applying that
information to the students they serve.

Stephen
Sawchuck did a good job reporting the heated debate about the Common
Core standards at the AFT convention. The Chicago Teachers Union wanted
to dump them. The head of the New York City United Federation of
Teachers mocked the critics of the standards. One union official said
that the critics represented the Tea Party. That’s pretty insulting to
the Chicago Teachers Union and one-third of the AFT delegates, as well
as people like Anthony Cody, Carol Burris, and me.

To
paraphrase Randi Weingarten’s questioning of her AEI audience about
their knowledge of the collaboration of the AFT leadership with
corporate education reform, who in the membership of the AFT and the
general public knows about the depth of the collaboration of the AFT
leadership with corporate education reform? Why don’t you know this?